Inmates offered tools for change

Inmates who participate in the substance abuse program at Kaua‘i Community Correctional Center learn two things fairly quickly: Instructor Tali McCall doesn’t mess around, and problems will be faced head-on.

Now in its sixth year, Freedom to Change, the Salvation Army’s level II substance abuse program, meets three times a week at the jail. There are currently 40 students in the class, as well as 13 released inmates who attend an outside support group.

And while participation is voluntary, so, too, is the desire to change.

Mei, one of McCall’s students, is serving her third and longest prison term at three and a half years for assault. While Mei, a recovering meth addict, attended McCall’s class during a prior sentence, she just wasn’t ready then.

“We all can sit in a classroom and take notes and say we’re going to make it, but the change has to begin with you,” she said.

Her own transformation began during an exercise that asked students to map out addiction on their family trees.

“At first, you don’t think you have a problem,” Mei said. “But then you see that your great-grandmother, auntie and mother did, and your children could.”

At 28, Mei says recovery is an on-going process because “an addict knows what an addict wants.”

The program, administered by the Salvation Army and funded by the Department of Public Safety, focuses on reducing recidivism; integrating former inmates into society; providing a link between substance abuse, the participants and their legal problems; and offering support once released.

McCall discusses with her classes the disease of addiction in biological, social and psychological contexts by looking at family patterns, sexuality, self-image and stress relapse triggers.

Because the drug problem and criminal activity history of each student is multi-faceted, so, too, must be the approach. According to McCall, she works by the philosophy of keep the foundation growing with care and strength, or e mau ana ka malama me ka ikaika.

“It can’t just be about one thing,” McCall said. “It has to be about many.”

In addition to on-site counseling and anger management and cognitive skills groups, the program has expanded into the community with Continuum of Care.

The support group not only offers a safe place to vent about difficulties faced upon reentering the community, but it assists released inmates in locating what they need, be it housing, mentoring, treatment during a relapse or transportation.

“The development of this program has been kind of one-stop shopping,” McCall said.

With degrees in substance abuse, family therapy and community planning as well as a 30-year career devoted to social work and delivery of services, McCall has learned what her students need from her. Above all, it’s been honesty and consistency.

“That I can give you,” she said, “but you’re not always going to want it.”

Part of the self-education process is confronting painful pasts and how emotions, thoughts and experiences shape patterns of behavior.

Just like Mei, Craig, 42, has learned that the change begins with the individual.

“My biggest weapon against relapse is my desire to change my life,” Craig said.

Now serving his fifth sentence, also for assault, Craig said he refused to let the nine-month term be wasted time.

With an impending release date in late September, Craig feels he finally has turned a corner by understanding that problems and anger will still be there, but violence and drug use can no longer be used to cope.

Craig plans to continue his association with the program once out of jail by attending Continuum of Care meetings.

“It’s a transition so that inmates get a chance to deal with issues and obstacles that are different than normal people,” McCall said.

Craig said he used to look at jail as a really negative experience, but now he views it as a positive time out.

On leaving the structure of McCall’s classroom and earnestly starting a new lifestyle in a very familiar place, Craig joked that the road doesn’t end there.

“I wouldn’t have to change much — just everything,” he said.

• Blake Jones, business writer/assistant editor, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or bjones@kauaipubco.com.